Black Baza x SDGs — #13 Climate Action

by the Black Baza Team

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are identified priority areas of work and collective action if we want to make the world a better place by 2030.

For many of us in the environment and development sector, the SDGs are what we cite in policy papers and publications. This year however, for us at Black Baza, the SDGs have a more lived reality… and we thought we would share this with you!

It felt best to start with Climate Action.

Climate change has never been more in our faces than in the past month. Mainstream news did not report it but coffee production in India is at an all time low. Farmers we work with are seeing a drop of over 60% this year.

“There are no fruits on my coffee plants”, says Siddamma.

The reason?

Both scientists and indigenous peoples experts say that the cause is changing climate. Rainfall in the past year was very scattered and untimely, particularly when it counted like during coffee flowering and later just before coffee harvest began. It is catastrophic for small farmers when crop fails in the way it has in 2022.

At Black Baza, we have responded by raising our purchase prices from farmers by 2.5x to offset some losses.

But is it enough?

It is evident that if we don’t take steps to mitigate climate change, growing and drinking coffee will become totally unaffordable!